Employee Green Behavior as the Core of Environmentally Sustainable Organizations

Authors

Hannes Zacher
Cort W. Rudolph
Ian M. Katz, Old Dominion UniversityFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2023

DOI

10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-120920-050421

Publication Title

Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior

Volume

10

Pages

465-494

Abstract

Environmental sustainability has become an ethical and strategic imperative for organizations, and more and more employees are interested, encouraged, or instructed to act in environmentally sustainable ways. Consequently, organizational scholars have increasingly studied individual-level antecedents of employee pro-environmental or employee green behavior (EGB). We argue that, to advance this literature and to inform effective interventions, research should investigate how EGB, as a compound performance domain, is associated with antecedents and consequences at multiple levels (i.e., individual, team, work context, organization, society). Accordingly, we pursue three interrelated goals with this review. We first present a comprehensive review of research on EGB, including definitions, theoretical frameworks, methodological approaches, and empirical findings. Second, we develop an integrative conceptual model of EGB as the core of organizational environmental sustainability. Third, we conclude with recommendations for future theory development and methodological improvements, as well as practical implications for employees, leaders, and human resource management.

Rights

Copyright © 2023 by the authors.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. See credit lines of images or other third-party material in this article for license information.

Original Publication Citation

Zacher, H., Rudolph, C. W., & Katz, I. M. (2023). Employee green behavior as the core of environmentally sustainable organizations. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 10, 465-494. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-120920-050421

ORCID

0000-0002-2465-6376 (Katz)

Repository Citation

Zacher, Hannes; Rudolph, Cort W.; and Katz, Ian M., "Employee Green Behavior as the Core of Environmentally Sustainable Organizations" (2023). Psychology Faculty Publications. 148.
https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/psychology_fac_pubs/148